The present invention relates to machines for packaging unit doses of medication. There are many instances in pharmacies, hospitals, and other healthcare facilities where it is desired to individually package unit doses of certain medications. This is usually accomplished by placing the medication (normally in pill, tablet or capsule form and hereinafter the term “pill” shall mean any of tablet, capsule, caplet, geltab, gelcaps, and other forms of oral solid medication) in packaging such as a strip packages. Packaging machines such as the Euclid Cadet (also see U.S. Pat. No. 4,493,178 which is incorporated by reference herein) are presently employed to place unit doses of medication into individual packages. These types of packaging devices typically employ two lengths of coated paper (or plastic film) which are supplied by rolls and may be referred to as dual film fed packaging machines. A pill feeder is positioned above the film and deposits the pill between the two lengths of film. A pair of heated sealing jaws will engage the sections of film where a pill has been deposited and will melt a seal around the perimeter of the film in order to form individual packages enclosing the pills. Each package is then typically either cut off from the two rolls of film into separate packages or formed into long strips of packages which are perforated between each package for later separation by a healthcare provider. The ongoing operation of the packaging process will form multiple individual packages or a long string of perforated “strip packages.”
Typically, one side of the strip packages will normally be formed of a transparent plastic film such that the pills may be seen. The other side of the strip packages will be formed of a material which may be printed upon and a color (e.g. white) which will contrast well with printing ink. Typically, important information regarding the drug being packaged is printed on the nontransparent side of the individual packages by a printer incorporated into the packaging machine. This information might include the name of the drug, the dose, the expiration date of the drug, and a bar code representing the National Drug Code (NDC) number.